Multifamily

Jujuy Redux

Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S and Maximiliano Spina of Maxi Spina Architects influenced developers and pushed contractors to realize a distinctly modern multifamily mid-rise. It's located in a postindustrial neighborhood in Marcelo and Maxi's hometown of Rosario—which happens to be one of the fastest-growing cities in Argentina.

The buildings eye-catching balconies were achieved with a series of diagonal steel-reinforced concrete trusses supporting cantilevers, with on-site formwork by Aserradero Soldini and concrete from local company Tecbeton.

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Gustavo Frittegotto

The building’s eye-catching balconies were achieved with a series of diagonal steel-reinforced concrete trusses supporting cantilevers, with on-site formwork by Aserradero Soldini and concrete from local company Tecbeton.

The geometry continues on the rooftop sundeck, with its wooden decking and tile floors.

600

Gustavo Frittegotto

The geometry continues on the rooftop sundeck, with its wooden decking and tile floors.

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Balcony Construction

The team at D.R.S. Construcciones, which served as both developer and builder on the project, had reason to trust their architects’ judgment—after all, they bought the property on Jujuy Street at the Spinas’ suggestion, and had worked with the duo previously on an adjacent parcel. Still, they had some concerns.

“Our experience with concrete in previous work … was limited within conventional structures,” says D.R.S. partner Mario Cina. The architects were calling for balconies with repeating, hyperboloid concrete structures, replete with chamfers and diagonal branches—and they were insistent that no exposed columns could project to the lower­most floors. The complex system would have to be self-supporting.

The builders contemplated prefabricating the units, but opted instead for on-site formwork, using a composite material to articulate the surfaces. “The logic was similar to the construction of a ship,” Cina says. “We welded metal faces in place, then covered them with a layer of fiberglass and resin.” The casting of the rest of the concrete structure took place simul­taneously, giving the cantilevers added support from inverted columns in the rooms below.

Cina says his company—which rarely does residential projects—was a good match for the architect’s ambitions: “We have an unorthodox view of [housing]. That allowed us to tackle the project from a fresh viewpoint.”

Marcelo and Maxi Spina were born and raised—and studied architecture—in the town of Rosario, Argentina, which is about 200 miles west and north of Buenos Aires. Today, the brothers are based in Los Angeles: Maxi, 36, at the head his eponymous practice, Maxi Spina Architects, and Marcelo, Intl. Assoc. AIA, 42, as principal of design firm P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S. Together, los hermanos Spina have teamed up for a number of projects, and their collaborative approach starts from a shared sense of architectural invention. “Our working method is one that seeks for areas … in which we can innovate,” Maxi says, and sometimes the greatest opportunities lie in situations “where we need to accept convention.”

Their latest joint venture, undertaken with Marcelo’s partner in P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, Georgina Huljich, is a residential mid-rise in Rosario that demonstrates exactly how the team effects a balance between novelty and custom. Jujuy Redux, so named because it is the team’s second project on Jujuy Street, is an eight-story, 13,500-square-foot luxury apartment building located in the former industrial district of Pichincha. The area is seeing an influx of new residents, while the city as a whole is undergoing a boom in construction as local investors look for safe bets in an uncertain economy.

Jujuy’s creamy, contemporary exterior is certainly in line with one’s expectations for a speculative development in an emerging neighborhood: The modern aesthetic and on-site facilities—a sleek rooftop sundeck and marble floors among them—provide all the trimmings of a tony urban shelter geared toward young and youthful cosmopolitans. Yet it is one of the building’s ostensibly more banal amenities that makes it really stand out.

Balconies are common enough in residential buildings worldwide—they’re especially popular in Argentina, observes Marcelo, where the “climate tends to be super, super hot” in the summer—but the designers wanted the balconies connected to Jujuy’s 13 apartment units to be different. It was here, they felt, that they had their opportunity to innovate.

With the somewhat wary blessing of their client, the architects deployed a unique construction system that made the balconies an integral part of the structure, rather than mere appendages to it. Extruding the floor plate outside the building envelope, the team equipped the cantilevers with struts that both support them and provide a sort of peek-a-boo effect. The residual triangular openings reveal or conceal residents, depending on where they stand.

It wasn’t the simplest solution, but the Spina brothers say it’s what gives the project the feeling of potential that drives them. “Our interest wasn’t just to create high value real estate,” Maxi says. “It was to create a new look for urban living for young people who want to enjoy what the city has to offer.”